I grew up in the Mojave
Desert, St. Thomas, and Cocoa Beach. I remember the Mojave Desert because it
literally began where my back yard ended and was full of fascinating stuff to
check out, from horned toads to tumble weeds. The burning sand and barren
distances of the desert stuck in my mind and helped set the tone for Scent of Death. After graduating from
Carnegie-Mellon University, I joined the Navy, crossed the Atlantic and Pacific
Oceans, and lived three years in Spain. I am presently working as a naval
architect designing a floating renewable energy plant for a Caribbean island.
Besides writing, I love to ballroom dance, play the fiddle, and travel. My wife
and I live in Arnold, MD.

Please tell us about your newest release.

In Scent of Death, James Goodwin uses his olfactory equivalent of
perfect pitch to sniff out people’s emotions, from love to malice. He earns a
handy living by uncovering corporate cheats, but he’s growing bored. When
billionaire Garth Cotton asks him to cook up the world’s first love potion,
James first smells a grand challenge, and accepts. But once on the high seas in
Cotton’s mega-yacht, James smells treachery. He sniffs out secrets that land
him and Cotton’s dazzling assistant, Samantha Heartgrave, on a timeline to
death. To save himself and Samantha, James must exercise his gift of smell in ways
he never dreamed possible.

What inspired you to write this book?

My inspiration came from a
question that popped into my head one day: “What if a person could smell evil?”
I expanded the question to include all emotions, and wondered what a person
would do with this gift. How would they learn to connect smells with emotions
when they were growing up? Would such a gift help them untangle the emotions of
puberty and dating? Would they use their sense of smell to start their own
business? What sort of adventures and dangers could result from having this
gift?

What’s the next writing project?

My next project is a dive
into the adventures and mishaps of folks on fictional St. Mark, the smallest of
the US Virgin Islands. Ex-pats, descendents of pirates and slaves, and a
smattering of the rich and famous live off the grid, lighting their homes with
kerosene lanterns, catching rain for their drinking water, and oblivious to TV,
Internet, and Wi-Fi. Charter boat captain Richard Drake finds himself at the
center of island events, including unbidden visitors, unwanted developers,
unwelcome storms, and unintended consequences. His blue-eyed, tanned charm is
tempered with courage forged as a combat Marine, and he reminds many of his
island friends of that English pirate, John Coxon, who founded the little
colony after a profitable career plundering the Spanish Maine. This will be a
series, and I am now writing the first book, Paradise and the New Girl.

What is your biggest challenge when writing a new
book? (or the biggest challenge with this book)

My biggest challenge is
always to find time for research, writing, and rewriting. I would like to
dedicate each morning to writing. Sometimes I can do that, but there are so
many obligations, like deadlines in my job as a naval architect.

If your novels require research – please talk about
the process. Do you do the research first and then write, while you’re writing,
after the novel is complete and you need to fill in the gaps?

All of my novels require
detailed research, starting from the beginning when I only have the initial
idea, and continuing as my thoughts come together into the narrative. Thank
goodness for the Internet, where I can find almost anything I need if I can
just come up with the right key words. Besides the Internet, I order books on
specialty subjects, such as How to Build
a Virgin Islands Sloop (Geoffrey Brooks) for my upcoming novel, Paradise and the New Girl.

What’s your writing space like? Do you have a
particular spot to write where the muse is more active? Please tell us about
it.

I am lucky because I have
a wonderful home office with an ergonomic chair, a wide-screen computer, decorative
pictures on the walls, and lots of files and shelves for storage. It’s
spacious, yet feels homey and cozy, so even though it’s where I do my naval
architecture work, it’s also perfect for being creative and writing.

What authors do you enjoy reading within or outside
of your genre?

My favorite author these
days is Bernard Cornwell, who wrote the Richard Sharpe series. I love his tales
of military adventure in the early 1800s. Cornwell has a great eye for the
sweep and the detail of battle. He has a gift for making the past come alive,
whether it’s about the hardship of the soldier in the field, or the terror of
hand-to-hand fighting with sword and bayonet. I also love reading Western
novels by Louis L’Amour, and again much of the draw is the detail he weaves
into his stories about how people lived in the American West.

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About Me

I'm a NH native and love New England. I love writing about the region, exploring it on foot, on my bicycle, and in my car. There are so many small communities and fun and interesting people in this area, that I could be here a lifetime and not do all it is I want to do. :)

I'm a moderator at The Writer's Chatroom that hosts live chats with guest authors on Sunday nights 7-9PM EST. Join the e-mail list to get notifications of upcoming guests, then stop in and join the conversation!